this might've tipped me over my decision of whether or not to buy the destiny ps4 bundle. Hopefully newegg still has some for pre-order. And get back on diablo 3 gais, it's lonely grinding act 1 bounties by myself for the best ring in the game.

Is there a particular theme to go along with the questions, or just general questions regarding RPGs? If the latter, I have one:

To me, it feels like the Action RPG genre is currently in a renaissance of sorts with series like The Elder Scrolls, Dark Souls and Fallout leading the way in creating immersive, open worlds with unique ways of doing battle (Dark Souls' style of 'dangerous' combat, V.A.T.S. etc. Simultaneously, turn-based RPGs seem to be regressing-- many times seeming to use older graphical styles and being relegated to handheld platforms as they become more niche. Do you think a turn-based RPG renaissance is possible and if so do you think it's on the way, or far off?

I can elaborate more if you want me to, but I didn't want to write a novel.

Question / prompt: What are some RPGs that are just okay or maybe average, because they're missing something? Like, C+ RPGs that would become A- RPGs if they made one small-to-medium-sized adjustment or corrected one flaw. I would love to hear each regular panelist provide an answer.

After listening to the podcast, I also had to think about Monsoon's excellent question. I dug into my past reviews, and I've got a couple.

Mugen Souls is maybe more of a B game than a C+, but still, the changes that would have made it much better are not big ones. Making it so that you could rewatch tutorials would have helped, for example, and that seems like a tiny change. But more importantly, I think if they had just cut a thing or two from the gameplay systems, it could have been great. The characters had too many stats, and what they did was very unclear. And the system that you use so often to attempt to turn enemies into your peons was equally unclear, making it a constant guessing game. Thankfully, from what Neal said in his review of the sequel, they did add an in-game help menu, and they made the peon system more clear.

More recently, Borderlands 2 on Vita. Again, maybe more of a B than a C+... or maybe even a B even. But still, the controls are a mess, because they tried to incorporate all of the controls from the console, and you just don't have enough buttons on Vita. There are one or two things they could have cut, and that would have made all the difference in the world. You don't really need a "switch to the next weapon" button, for example, because you have the entire D-pad dedicated to weapon selection.

Aside from that, all of the games I could think of that were just not good would need more/bigger changes than you're asking about to become actually good. :)

I got a couple topics for you guys. Firstly, there have been several games that I have tried that I did not find engaging and unlike the usual "love something everyone hates or vice versa" it more came down to I understood why people would find it enjoyable, but it's not striking a chord with me. What games have you guys encountered that exemplifies this? Games you could agree are well crafted, even great games, but you just couldn't click with.

The second is tied to episode 83's shocking revelation, that Rob is tired of Dark Souls. To me, when gamers go back and experience something again and again, two majority responses occur. One, you are instantly reminded why you loved it, or two, you start to see the flaws and grow to dislike it. IGN recently posted a review of Another World 20th Anniversary, and scored it poorly - prompting the usual angry response of "pansy" modern gamers "not getting it". Coupling these two events with me replaying Paper Mario - my first experience with turn based rpgs - it got me wondering, can games "hold up" for an infinite amount of time or is fan burnout and disdain from modern gamers inevitable?

Question / prompt: What are some RPGs that are just okay or maybe average, because they're missing something? Like, C+ RPGs that would become A- RPGs if they made one small-to-medium-sized adjustment or corrected one flaw. I would love to hear each regular panelist provide an answer.

I'd have to go through my backlog of reviews because I know I have several where I felt like a teacher screaming at a child "But you have so much potential!!!"

First one that comes to mind is Fate/Extra. Excellent visual novel, lousy RPG. A few minor tweaks to the RPG elements (e.g. less vague battles and more interesting dungeons) and the game would have been better.

^I always have to add the disclaimer (so I don't get into a fight with my wife) that Cabin in the Woods was all sorts of awesome and Whedon did a much better job on The Avengers than I thought he would. He still owes me twenty bucks for ruining my childhood with Alien Resurrection...